Film: The Director
Director: Oscar Degirolamo
Writer: Oscar Degirolamo
Actors: Thomas Bills, Rhys Crowley
Synopsis: Ted finds himself in a situation that defies all that we know.
In a new exclusive interview leading up to the Southend Film Festival I got a chance to ask Writer-Director Oscar Degirolamo a few questions about the short film The Director.
The Director will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on Saturday 8th June at at 18:30 as part of the Mostly Made in Southend collection of shorts.
Q. Your film ‘The Director’ has been selected to play at the Southend Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect from the film?
A. People can expect a film that doesn’t follow a traditional narrative structure, but hopefully still gets them hooked by it’s style and oddness.
Q. How did the idea for the film come about and What were your inspirations when writing the script?
A. Honestly, I was just sat in front of a computer at school and just started to write, I didn’t know much about writing at that time, I just wrote. I knew a heavy inspiration for me would be David Lynch, and all I could think in that moment was how his films on the surface lack any real sense. So I thought, what is the most Lynchian idea I could come up with? and ‘THE DIRECTOR’ was born.
Q. What were some of the influences for the look and style of the film?
A. David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’ was a large inspiration, even though at the time of shooting I hadn’t seen the full film! I know, I know it’s a sin. I also liked Lynch’s nightmarish aesthetic, but I wanted to blend this with a sort of film noir aesthetic as well, so I shot in black and white and kept it all very dark.
Q. Where there any elements of the original script which were adapted during filming?
A. Not much of the scripts elements were altered during filming. I mainly stuck with what was on the page. Some ideas like the cut to black in the middle of the film were added but apart from that the film is rather faithful to the script. The only one I can think of is Ted running outside, due to the noise of the door handle. The door handle shot and noise were added as before it seemed like there was no cause for him to be venturing outside.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments whilst making the Film?
A. When having to shoot the shot of Ted becoming The Man in the suit I decided not to this in the edit as I liked the idea of getting Tom (Ted) to duck and Rhys (The Man in the suit) quickly standing up as I whip the camera 360 degrees. I wanted to keep the films effects all practical, also at the time I didn’t want to take the risk of a noticeable cut. This idea proceeded to consume most of our evening as I whipped too fast, or Rhys stood too far away from the camera or even Tom hitting Rhys on his way down.. This was long but a lot of fun to watch and shoot.
Another moment would be when the pen breaks and ink flicks on Ted’s face. First of all, I had forgotten to source anything that would look good as ink in black and white and not be a risk to Tom’s eyes. So I brewed up a watered down ketchup concoction that we later abandoned as it didn’t have the right viscosity for ink. I then found some fake blood which we watered down, but the new problem was getting the ink flick right. I placed some on my hands and began to yell “action!” and trying to flick the ink just after I yelled it. This did not work. Then I remembered that my girlfriend, Lily Baxter, who was working on the film always enjoyed flicking me and was rather good at it. So we covered her hands in the watered fake blood and got the shot in one take. May sound like an issue but was actually one of the funniest moments whilst making the film as it was ridiculous that this effect would just repeatedly not work.
Q. Did you experience any issues whilst making the film?
A. Once I had edited a first draft I did have to go back and do some re-shoots (A shot of the paper, Rhys’ hand on a door handle and Tom reacting to the door handle noise) but this was an easy fix. Also, I did have to shoot during daylight on the last day of shooting due to time concerns, but the film is all set at night. So what I did was get bin bags and me and my mum taped over all of the windows to give the effect of night time in the film.
Q. What do you hope people will take away from the film
A. I hope people take away the cyclical structure of the film and discuss why it is cyclical. I would also be very happy if people noticed it as it is one part of the film I still worry about being clear enough for an audience watching for the first time. Also, that a director that only just turned seventeen at the time of making this film can be technically competent with their filmmaking. I even surprised myself because I was expecting my first film to be awful let alone get picked by Southend Film Festival.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are working on?
A. I do, one I have recently shot is another short but is set around a couple and an argument they have, but this argument goes somewhere that you would not expect. I would like to submit this one next year once I had finished the edit and re-shot some moments.
Q. If someone is looking to direct their first film, what advice would you give them?
A. I would say just go for it. Get a camera and go! Think about every little aspect and plan everything, because it will get to the day and you won’t be ready, meaning that your vision cannot come to fruition. Also do whatever you want but first learn how to write a basic story that follows all the rules and make it. This will teach you to write and become technically competent and as my Film Studies and Media BTEC teacher Mr Gardner (who has also had films shown at Southend Film Festival) says, you must learn the rules to break them. Maybe don’t go in trying to reshape Hollywood but learn how Hollywood works then try to break it. Really at the end of the day stop procrastinating and just go out and MAKE A FILM!
You can find out more about Oscar Degirolamo on the following
https://www.youtube.com/@OscarDegirolamoMovies
Oscar Degirolamo (@oscar_degirolamo) • Instagram photos and videos
The Director will be playing at the Southend Film Festival on Saturday 8th June at at 18:30 as part of the Mostly Made in Southend collection of shorts.
You can find out more about the Southend Film Festival on the website
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
